Trump's Approval Just Hit A New Low Across Four Major Polls: 'He's Doing Way Worse Than Joe Biden'

Four polls. Four second-term lows. And CNN's Harry Enten, a man not exactly given to drama, standing in front of a screen on Monday looking like someone who'd been asked to explain a car crash in slow motion.

AP-NORC: minus 26. NBC News: minus 22. Yahoo-YouGov: minus 20. Quinnipiac: minus 19. Every one of them a new low for the given pollster during Trump's second term. The average across all four sits at roughly minus 22, which puts the president deeper underwater than Joe Biden was at this point in his presidency (minus 13 in February 2022) and worse than Trump himself managed the first time round (minus 12 at the same stage).

'I'm not sure there is a floor,' Enten told anchor Kate Bolduan, 'because if there is one, Donald Trump, at least in term No. 2, has just fallen through it.' That quote alone tells you where this story is heading.

Independents Have Gone

Enten was blunt about what's driving the collapse. It isn't Democrats; they were already gone. It's independents, the voters who swing elections and who gave Trump enough of a margin in 2024 to win a second term.

At this point in his first term, Trump's net approval with independents stood at minus 17, per Quinnipiac. It is now minus 27. A 10-point deterioration with the one group a president cannot afford to lose; the kind of shift that should have strategists staring at the ceiling at three in the morning.

'When you lose the centre of the electorate, you lose the American people,' Enten said. 'I don't understand how this works out well for the president of the United States.'

His Own Base Is Cracking

And here is where it gets properly uncomfortable for the White House. Enten pointed out that Trump built both victories on non-college voters. That base, he said, 'is absolutely collapsing'.

Pew Research, surveying in late January, found approval at 37 per cent, down from 40 per cent in late 2025. Only 27 per cent supported all or most of his policies, a drop from 35 per cent when he took office. Among Republican-leaning respondents, the share saying congressional leaders should not feel bound to back Trump's agenda has risen.

That last detail is easy to skim past. Don't. When your own coalition starts giving lawmakers permission to break ranks, something has shifted that numbers alone cannot capture.

Worse Than Biden, and He Knows It

Three separate polls last week found a majority of Americans now believe Biden did a better job. For a president who built his identity on being the anti-Biden, that comparison must sting quite a lot.

AP-NORC, surveying from 5 to 8 February, put Trump at 36 per cent approval and 62 per cent disapproval. Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin average had his net at minus 13.7 as of 9 February, with strong disapproval breaking 46 per cent for the first time.

Gallup, which tracked presidential approval for 88 years, discontinued its poll late last year. Trump's final reading with them was 36 per cent. Rather a bleak number to end on.

What the Numbers Mean for 2026

Republican pollster Whit Ayres has warned that presidents below 50 per cent approval typically preside over major midterm seat losses. Trump is not flirting with 50; he is 14 points south of it. A December poll of young male voters aged 18 to 29 found Democrats leading the generic ballot 61 to 31.

Mind you, polling isn't destiny. Biden's numbers were grim and his party still held the Senate in 2022. But Trump's problem is not one bad survey. It is four polls from four organisations, all pointing the same way, with the voters he needs most walking away fastest.

The White House insists the president was 'overwhelmingly elected by nearly 80 million Americans'. That was then. Nobody on Enten's screen was smiling about the numbers now.